Part Two
It bothered him.
Kaito sat cross-legged on his bed, chin and mouth buried in a hand as he stared out at the quarter-moon as it lifted herself over the rooflines. All thoughts of magic bullets and heists and shrunken detectives were long since gone from his mind, because said mind was too full of it: that look on her face. And it bothered him.
Aoko wasn't supposed to have that kind of face: that face of masked-loneliness. And if there was one thing Kaito understood, it was masks and how to recognize them. Aoko shouldn't be lonely. She'd done nothing to deserve it. She was a bright, happy, willful person, but to see her just stand there in the genkan, shoulders sagging under that empty weight... And then to see her turn, see him, and slap on a smile. It bothered him. What kind of best friend was he if he didn't try to ease that loneliness? He knew he caused a lot of it by taking her father out on heists. There was no way Nakamori would let a chance to collar him slip away. But if Kaito was so damn aware of how she hated losing her precious time with her father, why didn't he do something? He just took it for granted that she'd be fine.
He never realized how much he took her for granted and took advantage of her. He had always just assumed she'd be there because she always was, even before his father was so viciously ripped from his life. He'd watched her grieve for her mother (on reflection he hadn't really done much for her at the time) and no, the excuse that he was only five did not mean anything. But Aoko had pulled him out bodily from the despair that he'd felt when The News had arrived about his father.
His advantage-taking had only been compounded with his night job; he was forever ducking her notice or lying to her or just outright ditching her (even that time when she handcuffed herself to him) and he just willfully ignored the fact that there would be repercussions for those decisions because anything was better than putting her in a place where she had to choose between him and her father.
But seeing her standing at the doorway, watching her silent admission of defeat as she saw her father off, was... was... it just bothered him.
Growling softly, he flopped back onto his bed, digging his hands under his hair, Tsukiyomi still streaming her light across his face. He looked to the moon. "You got any ideas to get that fake smile off her face?" he asked.
The moon offered no response, continuing her climb up into the sky. Scowling, Kaito turned from her and tried to get some sleep.
The next morning found him in jeans and one of his father's sweaters under his overcoat and knocking at his next-door neighbor's house.
"Kaito...?" A sleep starved Aoko blearily welcomed him when the door opened. The tomboy was never a morning person, and being up late as Kaito knew she had been had only compounded things: her oversized sweater was lopsided, one cream-colored shoulder bare while the rest of the sweater was not quite pulled all the way down, exposing a thin line of her stomach. "Brr, it's cold this morning," she shivered, adjusting the sweater and oblivious to Kaito's suddenly flushed face. Geez, thief boy, what was the problem? "What do you want?" she muttered, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
Recovered from... whatever that reaction was, Kaito put on a gentleman's grin and bowed deeply to her. "We're almost ready to depart, milady," he said with great pomp and circumstance.
She blinked at him. "......... Huh?"
"Your Magical Mystery Entertainment Tour will be departing shortly; you'd better finish dressing yourself." He lifted his head, a grin of mirth on his features as he added, "Unless you like exposing your midriff to the public?"
Aoko stopped in mid-yawn, flushing at the comment as she automatically looked down to assess herself, realizing belatedly that she was scratching her stomach and showing more of that cream colored skin. Kaito stared right along with her, for reasons he didn't know.
"Augh, you pervert!" she yelped, taking a swing at him. He'd been so busy staring at the shape of her naval that he was smacked beautifully above his ear. Using it to his advantage, however, he fell dramatically and stayed on the frozen ground for several moments feigning unconsciousness.
Aoko refused to rise to the bait. "Oh, get up already," she said, much more awake now. A beautiful flush was still on her cheeks. "And get in here; you're letting all the cold air in."
Grinning, Kaito sprang to his feet and followed her in, unbuttoning his overcoat but leaving it on as he followed his best friend to the kitchen, listening to her annoyed mutterings.
"Stupid magic pervert takes every chance to peek at an innocent girl; why I ought to give him a concussion for all the times-"
Kaito grinned - this was too good to pass up. "It's not like it's anything I haven't seen before," he said in a bored tone, putting his gloved hands behind his head and watching the stage-worthy reaction blossom on Aoko's face.
"You... you mean you've..."
"Sure," he said glibly, "lots of times." He waited, watching all the delicious expressions on Aoko's face, before he delivered the punch line. "Don't you remember? Our moms would bathe us together."
And then, the beautiful flush of anger. "Kaaaaaitoooooooo!!" And all he could do was laugh as he began dodging. The chase took him through most of the house, jumping furniture and ducking under the swipe of a broom or a dustpan (being hit with the broom was one thing, but the dustpan was metal and it would hurt) for a good ten minutes before it finally wound down. Their current record was a memorable forty minute chase through middle school, but they both silently agreed that the school budget wasn't large enough for that kind of fun and since then they'd learned to curb themselves. A little.
Aoko offered him a hot cup of tea, though both were warm enough from the exertion that neither needed it, and asked, "Why are you here? Other than to tick me off?"
Kaito actually almost paused before he answered, not because he didn't know why he was there, but he didn't know why he was there, what emotional string it had been that had precipitated this particular visit. But he just didn't want to see that face on Aoko, the one where she put her loneliness aside in favor of seeing someone off or cheering someone up. It was loneliness he was all too familiar with; even more so with his night job and distancing himself from his loved ones. Standing on the front porch, watching as Aoko calmly and softly closed the door to his face and closed the door to her loneliness; it pulled at something he didn't have a name for.
He almost paused, but he didn't. "Don't be an idiot," he said brightly, poking her nose with a finger. "The Magical Mystery Entertainment Tour."
She rolled her eyes. "And what's that supposed to mean?"
"It means you trust me while I take you on a Magical Mystery Entertainment Tour."
"Trust you?" she said flatly, raising an eyebrow. But ultimately she just smiled - one much more sincere and frankly much nicer looking than the one she wore the previous night - and said, "Let me get my coat."
Within ten minutes they were out in the bitter cold and walking five blocks down to the bus station. The skies were overcast and grey, with the scent of snow in the air.
"Where are we going anyway?" Aoko asked, her blue-grey eyes still slightly suspicious.
"That's the Mystery part of this tour," Kaito offered theatrically.
It was a twenty-minute bus ride before they took the train deeper into the city. Aoko tried to needle him about where they were going, but the magician held firm, entertaining her with slight of hand and card tricks to pass the time. His mind multi-tasked in the meantime, listing out options and pros and cons of various things.
Origami cranes appeared in pockets of various people on the bus as Kaito let a corner of his mind tackle the Rock Concert Opportunity. Come on, a full audience! And not just fans swooning and waiting for him to take them home (Ew, can we say, "No Way In Hell"? Yes, we can...), but a proper and full audience wanting to see a show. It was rare for a jewel that caught his interest to show up in such an arena instead of boring old museums or body-guarded people, or plain old exhibits. No, this had potential. And given how many people could be held in the Budokan (over fourteen thousand, oh yeah!) his mind was flitting from one outrageous idea to another.
Kaito was just bursting to share this with someone, and as he made a dove appear from under Aoko's sweater, he knew he could never say a word. He wanted to talk about illusions, maybe making the audience disappear versus making the stage transform into a giant mechanical dinosaur and what would be better? Or maybe magically making all the instruments play old folksongs instead of rock 'n' roll. Or maybe with a shower of confetti making two rock singers and asking the audience to judge which is the real one (he might get a whole new career out of that...)? Or maybe....
But none of this could burst out. Even rewording it to a conversation about some sort of ideal magic trick in a fantasy show might leave enough of a memory in Aoko's mind to start putting things together, so he held his tongue. (Or rather, he stuck it out at her after she commented on how small-scale his tricks seemed to be that day. In proper response, he transported the person across the aisle from them to the front of the bus.)
Kaito sighed internally, shuffling a deck of cards while hiding them on Aoko's person for later tricks. He hated to see her lonely; it was why he was taking her out. But on a selfish level, it was because her loneliness reminded him of his own. Deciding to take the path of Kaitou Kid had drawn up a wall around those around him. It was a massively huge section of his current life, and it wasn't one he could share. Not with people who mattered. But his loneliness was his own choice. It was his decision to take up his father's mantel, hunt down his father's killers, and ensure that no one else lost someone because of a mythical gem. Aoko, however, didn't make the choice. She didn't ask for her father to be obsessed with catching Kaito's alter ego. She didn't ask for her mother to die, or Kaito's father. She didn't ask for him to be pulling away from her.
Which was, perhaps, why it bothered him so badly when he saw that look on her face when her father announced his last minute trip to Sendai. His loneliness was something he needed to do. Aoko's wasn't and it sure as hell didn't suit her.
Finally, they arrived at the right station and, ever the polite tour guide, Kaito put a blindfold on Aoko with the snap of a finger, putting his hand on the small of her back and guiding her into the thick crowd of people. With Magical and Mystery out of the way, it was time for Entertainment. Kaito received many an odd stare from people as he guided the blindfolded (and oblivious) Aoko around, but he, as always, cared little of what people thought and either offered a Cheshire grin or simply stuck his tongue out at the glares.
Only when they arrived at their destination did he take the blindfold off with a flourish, standing in front of Aoko's field of vision before offering a kind grin and saying, "Milady, the Tour has reached its next destination." He stepped out of her immediate sight and watched as she blinked in open surprise at their destination.
"GiGO Junior?" she read. "You took me to an arcade?"
Kaito grinned. "Well, I couldn't afford the real GiGO, and I did say it was an Entertainment Tour. Come on."
For the next three hours, Kaito and Aoko whiled away their yen playing games ranging from tournament fighters where Kaito deliberately played the sexiest girl character available to tick Aoko off, to laughably terrible shooters where Aoko laid claim that he was cheating because he was such a good shot, to classic Pac-Man games where Kaito lamented loudly that there was no way Aoko had memorized all the patterns of the ghosts in order to beat the levels in record time, to dancing and rhythm games where they were both either embarrassingly good or embarrassingly bad, depending on the song.
Afterward, when they were low on cash and high on spirits, Kaito treated Aoko to lunch, a tiny back alley ramen stand that could barely seat a half dozen people that smelled of noodles and cabbage and spices. Kaito placed the orders while Aoko squished herself into a stool. When the food arrived, Kaito lifted his chopsticks. "Here's to a day of distraction!" he said cheerily, finally showing his hand.
Aoko blinked, putting the words together and mentally backtracking to that morning, and likely the previous night. The smile that fell onto her face was soft and warm, and Kaito felt something in his chest swell.
"So that's was this was all about," she said, jabbing her chopsticks at him in playful accusation. "Kaito... thanks."
The part time thief grinned. "Good, 'cause you're paying for lunch."
"What?! Why you--!"
"Ah, I thought I heard familiar voices. To think that we'd meet!" The two teenagers looked up in startled surprise to see their teacher, Katanaka-sensei, in an ankle-length wool skirt and a deep blue shawl, standing at the counter waiting for an order. "What brings you here?" she asked.
"She's treating me to lunch," Kaito offered with a wide grin of mirth.
"I am not--!"
"Careful, Aoko-kun," the teacher said, "or Kaito-kun will just throw another jibe at you."
The girl opened her mouth to retort, but realized the truth in Katanaka-sensei's words and opted for silence; she was not, however, above throwing lethal glares in his direction that he glibly ignored. "Why are you out here?" Kaito asked.
"I was gaming," the teacher said, her order arriving. She opted to sit at the counter, not two feet from the pair's tiny table.
"Oh, you were at the arcade, sensei?" Aoko asked.
"Oh yes," she answered, stirring her oden with her chopsticks. "People often mistake me for a teenager, even though I'm almost thirty. I love videogames, though, and there's a room in the top floor for network gaming. It may not look it, but I'm a big fan of first person shooters, and I was playing against some Americans in one of their popular games. You wouldn't know the title."
Aoko blinked. "You like shooters?"
"I like the co-op," Katanaka-sensei replied. At Kaito and Aoko's blank looks, she explained. "I like going online and cooperating with other players and thinking and out-maneuvering an opponent. It takes a bright mind to be able to do it, and it's a nice mental exercise for me. Do either of you play videogames? What do you like to play?"
Aoko shrugged. "I'm not much of a gamer, though I do like tournament fighters when someone," she leveled a glare at a certain magician thief, "isn't trying to goad me."
Kaito said and did nothing, which only irked his best friend even more. "I always liked puzzle games. I have a DS somewhere in my room that I pull out and play sometimes." Not so much now, with him playing much more entertaining games. Actually, that gave him an idea for the note he'd send to Nakamori; but that would come much later. First he needed to decide what to do at the rock concert. There were so many possibilities.
"Puzzles, that reminds me," Katanaka said as she sipped on her noodles. Kaito and Aoko did the same. "You both are friends with Saguru-kun, right?"
"Of course!" Aoko chirped happily. Kaito found himself irking against his will at such a plucky response.
"Then you'll want to hear this: he and Kakeru-kun and Junko-kun have been invited to a martial arts tournament that's going to be held at Budokan. It's a prefecture championship."
"Oh, that's wonderful!" Aoko said, sincerely excited. Kaito was uncomfortable with the sting of... jealousy? Of what? It pinched at the base of his rib cage when he listened to her tone.
"Just wonderful," he muttered.
Katanaka-sensei nodded in agreement, oblivious to Kaito's increasingly flat look. "It's karate, judo, and akido, I think. We were the only school to get three students to attend, so we all have to go and cheer them on."
"Suuuure," Kaito offered in dry commentary, watching Aoko continue to light up at the idea of Hakuba being presented the opportunity to show off to the school. Geez, she never looked that happy whenever he was showing off. Then a switch flipped. "Wait," he said quickly, "Did you say the Budokan?"
"Yes?"
... Never mind! This was too good an opportunity to pass up. He could case the building without an excuse and canvas the area, helping him plan the heist. He put a bright grin on his face. "We'll be sure to give our full support to Hakuba."
Aoko turned a flat glare to him, having noticed the one-eighty. "No."
"No what?" Kaito asked innocently.
"No to whatever trick, prank, idea, or joke that just popped into your head," she said, leveling a chopstick at him. "Hakuba-kun should be focusing on the tournament and doing his best, not looking over his shoulder for whatever gimmick you have in mind. Besides, you shouldn't be embarrassing him in public like that!"
Kaito allowed himself a blink before putting on a bright and decidedly devilish grin on his face. "Why, Aoko! What a brilliant idea!!"
"Kaaaaitoooo..."
"It's too bad, though," Katanaka-sensei said, finally regaining their attention. "When I talked to Saguru-kun after school he explained he couldn't make it because of a prior engagement. It seems he's been invited to a conference on the Kaitou Kid and other Phantom Thieves in Yokohama, so he won't be able to attend."
The pair of teenagers blinked at the added sound byte of news, and Kaito's grin actually managed to widen as he started to snicker. "Too chicken to show!" he managed to sputter. Oh, he was not going to let Hakuba live this one down, he could milk this for weeks if he wanted to!
"Kaaaaitoooo..."
"Maa, maa, you two," the teacher said, putting her bowl down and adjusting her shawl. "It really is an opportunity for all of them; especially Junko-kun."
Aoko ripped her glare away from Kaito. "Junko-chan?"
"Yes, I hope so," Katanaka-sensei said softly, a gentle look on her face. "She's so shy and reserved. Their family is very traditional, and she doesn't really get many opportunities to shine like this; I'll be wishing her the best."
"Her and not Minagami-senpai?" Kaito couldn't help but ask.
The teacher started, an embarrassed flush coloring her cheek. "That's not what I meant," she stuttered. "It's just... she's so repressed, and Kakeru-kun is so willful."
"That's one way of putting it," Kaito happily offered. Aoko kicked him under the table. "What? He is!" he defended.
Aoko simply rolled her eyes. "Were they excited?" she posed the question to Katanaka-sensei.
The teacher smiled with a tad of irony. "It was hard to tell. Junko-kun, she became very flushed, I couldn't tell if it was from embarrassment or excitement. Kakeru-kun was very happy for the opportunity; he immediately started bragging how he would win, but..." The teacher's eyes widened and she immediately closed her mouth. "I think I've said too much," she said softly, picking up her chopsticks again and resuming eating.
Kaito could only shrug. "He was an ass, right?" he said, leaving the girls to choke on their food. "Probably totally put down Junko-chan and said it was useless for her or that it wasn't her place or something like that, right?"
Katanaka struggled to put on a neutral face; the trained impersonator could see the anger flickering across the teacher's features as she remembered the conversation, and Kaito knew he was pretty close to the truth. What really made him curious was the look under the anger, something that looked almost like true rage; it was a look he didn't know until he'd learned of his father's death. Curious, he asked, "What? Did he piss you off too?"
"Kaito!" Aoko hissed.
"It's all right, Aoko-kun," Katanaka-sensei said quickly, raising a hand in a placating gesture. Turning to the teen magician, she answered, "You have a good intuition, Kaito-kun. Yes, he did make me mad; very mad, actually. Some of the things he said were terrible. I tried to intercede, but... we'll say he didn't respond well to it."
That said a lot for Kaito. Likely the upperclassman gave the teacher a long and extended opinion of his chauvinistic views, and that would tick off any woman. He wondered when Aoko would start chasing the guy with a mop. On second thought, he liked that such a habit was reserved only for him.
"Anyway," the teacher said, finishing her bowl and pulling out her wallet. "Now that I'm relaxed, I have a lot of school work left to do."
The three said their goodbyes and, after Kaito and Aoko chatted over the rest of their own meal, the pair got up to pay their bill and wander about the city. In keeping with their gaming theme, they window-shopped at various gaming and electronics stores, trying out digital cameras (to which Kaito was wondering if he should purchase one to make a photo album of his heists), and listening to music. It was just as Kaito found (and subsequently bought) a CD by a certain Mexican rock band that he noticed that he and Aoko had picked up a tail.
Kaito didn't have the ability to test his Watchman Radar, like he did with pint-sized detectives, but Kaito was a person who - even when he was lost in his own thoughts - was constantly aware of the people around him and what they were doing. He noticed if Person A was wearing tacky day-glow orange socks under their conformist three-piece suit, or if Person B suddenly ducked down a side alley in a rush; it was something that came naturally to him and helped him in his impersonations. So, when his eyes gravitated to a tweed overcoat, he couldn't help but break out into a face-splitting grin.
"Kaito, what are you grinning about now?" Aoko asked as she rifled through some CDs of her own.
"Oh, nothing much," he said with a too-innocent façade. "We're just being stalked."
"What??" He always loved her reactions.
"Come on," he said brightly, putting a hand on her far shoulder to turn her around. "Let's see if he follows us."
That was how the "chase" began. After Kaito pocketed his new CD and led Aoko out of the store, he happily guided her down the street and around the corner, watching via reflections of windows or a mirror he had palmed and looked through in a show of running a hand through his hair. Aoko was nervous, not liking the idea of being followed, but Kaito couldn't help but grin wider and wider as he watched his tail chase after them, keeping a very respective distance from them.
Aoko kept turning her head. "I can't see him," she said.
"Stop looking," Kaito offered, turning another corner, hand still on her shoulder to guide her, "he's pretty far away, so you won't see him at first glance."
"Then how did you see him?" the teen girl demanded. "Unless you're pulling my chain again."
"Not in the slightest," he said with a whimsical air, making her doubt his credibility even more. "I've almost got him cornered."
The tomboy blinked, eyes flattening in disbelief. "How does that follow?" she said in a low, threatening voice.
"Watch," he said lightly, finally putting on speed and turning into a video store. Said video store had a camera over the front door that displayed the street-view across all their flat-screen TVs. Using that to his advantage, Kaito paused to wave at the cameras before pulling a translocation trick, leaving reasonable copies of Aoko and himself in front of the store waving idiotically at the cameras while the real pair delved deeper into the store. Kaito pulled aside a clerk. "Yo," he said lightly. "Do you know where the bathroom is? My girlfriend here is suffering from major PMS and I thought--"
"Kaitoooo!!"
"--that she should check to see if she's bleeding yet."
The clerk had turned a scandalous shade of red and quickly gave directions of where to go, all the while Kaito dodged Aoko's enraged swings and thrusts with the nearest thing she could grab - a heavy-duty AC adapter which she was swinging around like a bola. When they arrived at the tiny service hall where the lavatory was, Kaito beckoned Aoko to stop swinging.
"Oh, come on, it's not like I haven't used the PMS trick before," he said lightly.
Curiously, that made Aoko turn even redder. "With whom?" she demanded.
"My mother," he answered lightly.
The shock of it all sucked all motion out of Aoko as she stared in dumbfounded horror. Really, her reactions were always the best!
Satisfied with the silence, however, Kaito boldly put a hand on the small of the girl's back and gently pushed her - not to the bathroom - but to the exit that was always in such a location. In a back street, Kaito doubled backed with Aoko in hand and, peeking around a corner, couldn't suppress a giggle as he found his tail.
"Let's see how long it takes before he figures out he was just ditched," he said lightly, finally pointing out his stalker to Aoko.
"Wait... is that...?"
The pair watched as Hakuba watched their doubles waving to the camera, a brow twitching under his blond bangs as he regarded the spectacle with obvious (to Kaito, at least) irritation.
"That's our stalker?" Aoko asked in incredulity.
"Yep." Kaito said with a distinctly Cheshire grin.
The teen girl rolled her eyes. "Oh, for--" And then she stepped around the corner and away from Kaito. "Hakuba-kun!" she called out, making said teen turn around in suppressed shock. Kaito couldn't explain later why there was a prick of pain in his chest when Aoko left him like that, but he simply put on an annoyed face and followed after her.
"You're ruining the trick!" he called out.
"What trick," she demanded, pouting at him, "You were just going to make him stand there and wonder what we were doing."
"That was until you killed the next stage!" Kaito argued.
"Yeah? And what was the next stage?" Aoko bit back.
"Tar and feathers," he said with a perfectly straight face.
"You're impossible!"
"No, I'm a magician!"
"No," Hakuba said, finally recovering. "You're incorrigible."
Kaito scoffed. "Your opinion doesn't play into this," he offered.
Hakuba offered a grin that was entirely too confident. "Oh, poppycock," he retorted smugly, "my opinion matters because it matters to Aoko-kun." He nodded his head to her, offering the young woman a soft gaze before turning his grey-blue eyes to him.
Kaito was instantaneously surly, and Aoko was more than happy to ignore him in favor of the blonde's company, asking how he was doing and why he was out and about.
"Why don't you ask why he was tailing us," Kaito offered as he followed along behind them; walking by the dummies he saw in the TV store and making them disappear in a traditional puff of smoke.
Aoko threw a dark glare, and Hakuba seemed more than happy to push a certain magician's buttons. "I saw Aoko-kun here," he offered blandly, again bowing his head to her, "and I was curious to see what she was doing here. That you were with her didn't hurt either, I dare say, since I was also curious to see what you were doing."
"Well gee, 'Guru-chan," Kaito drawled out, using the first familiar name he could think of. Hakuba's face slackened in scandal, giving Kaito the confidence to pull out a good answer, "I came here with Aoko as an excuse so I could case where I was going to do my next heist. You see, I was thinking of stealing the security cameras of that shop back there so I could use it to broadcast my face all over Japan since there are still a few people who don't know the name 'Kaitou Kid', and while I was at it I figured I'd steal a prime time slot and make a breakout sitcom called 'The Adventures of the Glorious Phantom Thief and His Occasional Lapdog the Detective' where the Glorious Thief spends twenty-two minutes setting up and outsmarting the Lapdog Detective in proper Abbott and Costello fashion. Wouldn't that be great?" By then, Kaito was in full performance, he'd produced some hand puppets he'd made and was using them to mime comedy routines while he juggled one-handed.
Hakuba could only glare. Kaito, in response, only looked innocent. "What? Does it bother you, Sagu-rin, that I'm being forthright in my plans as Kaitou Kid? Or maybe that--"
Aoko threw a light fist into the magician's shoulder. "That's enough, Kaito!" she reprimanded, before throwing a second punch into Hakuba's shoulder. "And you! You're an idiot if you still think Kaito is the Kaitou Kid!" Both young men rubbing their shoulders, she stared them down with her hands on her hips. "Now, neither of you are going to ruin this Very Good Day for me, right?" There was the implied threat of a mop to anyone who dissented.
Kaito and Hakuba leveled flat glares at each other, daring one to provoke Aoko; but ultimately they both knew better and capitulated.
"Now," she said brightly, clapping her hands together. "Hakuba-kun, why don't you join us?"
The honey-blonde blinked, apparently surprised at the offer, before bowing his head. "I would be most honored," he said graciously. Ever the British gentleman, he offered his arm and Aoko (unbelievably in Kaito's mind) took it as the two resumed their walk down the street. Kaito trailed after them, wondering dejectedly what he could do to make the stick-in-the-mud go away.
It wasn't that he didn't like Hakuba; he was a great diversion when Nakamori or tantei-kun weren't around. Anybody that tenacious and persistent deserved a star next to their name in Kaito's Black Book (you know, next to the devil horns and black moustache doodled onto their picture and the long list of things done to make said person in the picture squirrrrrrm). He continually tried to break past Kaito's defenses, something only Aoko (and, when he dared to admit it, tantei-kun) could ever do and Kaito, in his perverse thinking, thought it was rather sweet that the teen detective was trying so hard. When Kaito was thinking about it that way, he tried to include the Brit in the study group or at other times.
But figure Aoko into the mix and everything changed. It irked Kaito to no end that Aoko went out of her way to bring Hakuba out from the throws of being a social first-grader. He couldn't for the life of him figure out what he'd done to garner the girl's attention. That the high school detective looked at her with a soft face did not help matters. In the slightest.
The rest of the afternoon was spent with Hakuba entertaining Aoko, regaling her with stories of London, England, France and all the history and culture that lay about Europe. He talked about his apartment in London and his Aunt's quaint country house in Devonshire, the Eiffel Tower and the Champs Elise. In spite of Kaito's dissent, he found himself liking the stories. The teen magician knew that there was a wide, wide world out there, and he looked forward to the time, after he'd destroyed a certain jewel, when he could travel Europe and America and China and the whole world, entertaining audiences everywhere. He already had ideas on how to convert some of his heist tricks into proper stage magic, and the thought of performing in front of the queen of England, Hakuba gnashing teeth somewhere in the audience, really tickled his fancy.
The thought put a grin on his face, and Hakuba instinctively narrowed his grey-blue eyes in suspicion.
"Now what are you thinking?" the blond asked.
"Royalty," Kaito answered honestly.
"And what jewel are you referring to in that cryptic comment?" Hakuba demanded, still suspicious.
Kaito laughed and leaned back, arms behind his head. "How about Royal Jewels?" he drawled.
"Kaito," Aoko scolded, "Stop teasing him. Hakuba-kun, stop suspecting him."
Kaito shrugged his shoulders and lowered his arms. "Anyway, I think we've just about finished this Magical Mystery Entertainment Tour," he said, putting his tour guide voice on. He took her hand gently and kissed it. "Shall this humble guide escort you home?"
Aoko blinked but nodded her head, suddenly shy. "O-okay."
Kaito turned to their blond companion. "Do you want to join us?" he asked, "It'll give you another excuse to try and shadow me."
Hakuba frowned, but played beautifully into Kaito's hands by saying, "No, I rather think not."
Kaito waited until they had parted ways for several minutes before allowing himself a triumphant, gleeful grin for fifteen seconds.
The train ride home was pleasingly quiet, both full of good feelings and the warm sense of contentment. The teen magician walked Aoko to her door, both lingering there, neither quite wanting to end such a good day.
"Yeah, uhm..."
"Well, anyway..."
"................"
Aoko finally took a deep breath and looked Kaito in the eyes, a warm smile on her face. "Thanks for the great day," she said finally. "You really did a good job with this 'show.' I'll see you tomorrow for school."
"... Yeah," Kaito said, still staring at that inviting face when the door finally closed on his face.
Suddenly, oddly empty, Kaito stepped back from Aoko's house and shuffled to his own home next door. He saw, as soon as he hit the sidewalk, that a young girl was pacing about his front door. He recognized the deep red hair, to say nothing of the flagrantly flamboyant costume. And the broom. Oh, he knew the broom.
"Kuroba-kun!!" Akako exclaimed, spinning around with flair.
"Akako-san," Kaito said in a low voice, his eyes flat. "... What are you doing at my house?"
"What took you so long to get home?" she demanded with equal trite. "I've been waiting for hours!"
"For what?"
"For you!!"
That pricked curiosity in Kaito, and he quirked up an eyebrow; his only sign for her to continue.
"Lucifer showed me a vision," she explained. "You cannot go to Budokan."
"... Huh?"
"You cannot go to Budokan!" she repeated, shaking a finger at him. Kaito wondered if she was aware how much cleavage her "ceremonial robe" showed - to say nothing of how much of her waist was exposed.
"Aren't you cold?" he asked in a flat voice.
"Do you not understand?" Akako demanded, thrusting her fists onto her hips. "Lucifer showed me; if you go to Budokan, you will be arrested!"
"Akako-san, I--what?"
"You will be arrested!"
Kaito, for all his lackluster exterior, had learned over time that Akako's predictions were worth heading, but at the same time he couldn't show that to Akako, because that would mean admitting that he was Kaitou Kid, and while they both knew that she knew, neither would dare admit it. Besides, her predictions were always dire.
"Is this about Kaitou Kid getting caught? I thought you of all people would know that he wouldn't let that happen," he said in feigned boredom.
"I didn't say caught, I said arrested," Akako insisted. "If you go to Budokan, you will be arrested, not Kaitou Kid."
The teen magician tilted his head to one side. "Why?" he asked simply.
Akako sniffed. "Lucifer didn't think it was necessary for me to know," she said in an embarrassed flush. "The one you fear will be there, and he will likely be the key to your arrest." She leaned forward, into Kaito's personal space. "You cannot go, for your own safety."
Kaito shrugged his shoulders. "Then I'll make sure 'I'm' not there." He'd make certain that Kuroba Kaito wasn't around for the heist; he'd have to pick a good face to impersonate. It would also behoove him to definitely go to the martial arts tournament; he could do a more detailed sweep of the building with the idea of hiding and escape (not that he never had that in mind whenever he cased a location, but it never hurt to make a point of it).
The redhead narrowed her eyes, reading something that Kaito didn't know, before shrugging her cloak back around her scanty costume and stalking off the front steps and down the street. Kaito watched for a few moments before deciding he would never understand Akako, and went into the house.
"Stupid Kaito," Akako muttered under her breath. "You're still planning on going." She breathed heavily through her nose. "I will have to protect you."
Author's Notes: Hnn, what to say. Kaito is fun. He plays around and does things with such flare that it's hard not to smile whenever he's doing something. ^_^ And the doofus doesn't realize what he's feeling for Aoko at all. Clueless. But that's what makes something later on so much fun. By now, you're probably starting to get some idea on who's going to get offed, but we won't say anything. People seem to like this opening, and we hope we can continue to live up to expectations. See you in two weeks!
Next time: Yellow. Lots and lots of yellow. And information seeking of a couple of sorts. ^_^